Tag Archives: Survival Skills

First, I want to say “I’m sorry” to the folks who make comments on the blog posts, and I forget to check and approve them right away. Sometimes, I get away from the blog for a few days or even weeks at a time because it’s not always the first thing on my mind, every day (which, for a wannabe writer is saying I’m perhaps not as focused on writing as I might be).

On to the actual blog post for today though.

This past week and month has been both a blast and blur. We had our 40th wedding anniversary on the 5th of August. It also happened to be my birthday as well. The main milestone is that I am still alive after all these years with JoAnne and she hasn’t killed me yet. I’m happy for that.

But more, I’m happy that we are both still around to enjoy the dreams that took hold ten years or so ago – sailing and living aboard a ship, in this case, the sailing ketch Adventure.

This boat has been, I’m positive, several others’ dreams before us. I know the previous owner had similar plans and designs as us. I know of many people who talk about, but never quite make it to the place we have made it too. I also know many give up on their dreams when they become difficult.

I believe JoAnne and I have “found our stride” and will continue to walk this world a few more years trying to continue to stretch these dreams into reality. Living on a boat is difficult, but easy. It has it’s ups and downs sometimes daily, like that tides. Your dreams of living aboard and seeing the world can be blown about by everything from the light breezes to hurricane force winds. You can watch others’ dreams die.

Sailing Ketch Renata, now at permanent rest

We watched one die this last month as a ship called “Renata” sank finally. She was an old ferro cement boat. The couple aboard her were elderly, and apparently had little income other than, we think, a social security check. They landed in this marina a few years ago, due to some unfortunate circumstances and literally became “stuck here” as money was tight, and I personally believe, their hearts were no longer in it.

The boat sat at the docks for years, collecting crud on the bottom, plant and animal life. A few weeks ago, she started taking on water, though I believe, knowing the design of the boat, it had been taking on water for months and months prior to the fateful day that landed her under water. The boat had broken loose on two occasions, being saved both times by marina personnel and people standing by that assisted (including, the last time, friends of ours who happened to be sitting at the docks at the same time Renata broke loose most recently in a wind storm). The first time she broke loose was during Hurricane Matthew, last year.

One evening, the owner, Jerry, contacted the marina and mentioned that his boat was “leaking”. It went from bad to worse over a few hours. I believe the hull finally became dangerously soft in places and began sending water into a crack, which likely (I’m guessing, as no one has seen the hull for sure to determine the exact cause of the sinking) caused the crack to enlarge. Smaller pumps were tried, and eventually, TowBoatUS came in with a huge pump and tried to keep the boat floating. Towboat, the marina, the owner and the USCG made a series of decisions to protect the ICW.

Had the boat sank on the outside dock where she was located, she’d have heeled her masts over to cover most of the ICW canal, thereby becoming a danger to navigation. Taking her up into the creek was out of the question due to the draft (and apparently had been tried once before, which may have led to originally crippling the boat). Finally, the decision by the USCG was made to put the boat over in a shallower area, off the canal in such as manner as not to block that canal.

The boat remained afloat for a full 24 more hours before it sank suddenly at about 5pm the next day. The couple have since been assisted by marina people, live aboards and locals in the area, collecting enough money to get them sent back to their native Ohio. Both vehicles they owned (neither in good repair) were towed by a trucking company to them in Ohio a day later.

That day, a couple of sailors lost their home, and their dream to the deep blue. It could happen to anyone, even the best of us, or the worst of us. It can happen to expert sailors when something goes dreadfully wrong, or it can happen to the novice with minor mistakes. But, it happens all to often.

Watching the Internet talk about these things, and especially Facebook and Social Media and the condemning of these people who have unfortunate events occur to them tells me the human race is rather callous sometimes. Even I feel as if they could have done more to prevent what happened, instead of relying on the rest of us around them to rescue them.

But, in the end, even the naysayers stood up and helped. For that, I am grateful, because it tells me that humanity isn’t completely doomed.

I will help anyone as I can. And I hope if I ever am in need of assistance, my fellow sailor will stand up and lend me a hand if needed. Judging those folks on the Internet, where your “anonymity” is promised but not guaranteed, is simply atrocious behavior. For those around the marina and community who talked about these people behind their backs constantly, I feel only sorrow and shame for their behavior and words.

Because they were elderly, I had little doubt they were unable or incapable of making knowledgeable decisions for themselves, which by itself would have been no worse had they lived in a home somewhere instead of a cement boat. But because they were in a ferrocement vessel that was slowly losing integrity, the remarks beg the question of “Why did no one attempt to help them before?”

I can’t answer the question either. I didn’t know their whole story until after the sad ending, and even now, many pieces are missing. Now that I know much more than before, I feel bad for not being able to help sooner. Then, the days we passed them on the docks and said Hello to them, receiving only a grunt, or sometimes not even acknowledgement we were there says a lot about the way others treated them.

If you’re standoffish, or downright rude in your treatment you might not be acknowledged in return. Some were rude here, and treated them rudely, but they too, treated others in kind. So, honestly, I can’t say what would have become of them later in life, had the boat not sank.

Today, I understand they are back in Ohio, under care of their children. I know nothing more of their circumstances than what I have mentioned here. I don’t know how long they lived on the boat, where they started from, where they went or how life will go for them in the future, but I can only hope their children brought them back with open arms and will show them the love they have missed for so many years being alone and away from humanity (whether by choice or not).

We’ve had dozens of cruiser friends pass through, all happy in their lives, doing what they wanted to do more than anything. We’ve watched a few start their journey, and traveled with some who were barely days along in theirs, as we moved into the first and second year of our own journey. All have been happy in what they were doing, a few with trepidation, some ready (including me more than once) to hang it up and return to a normal, quiet, less rolly life in a house, and not an anchorage or marina.

But for the folks in this story, their days of travel are finished. They have swallowed the anchor, not of their own choosing.

Over the years I’ve gone to training courses I was offered including winter, desert and jungle survival. Some of them sucked worse than others. Also, over the years I became what is known today as “a Prepper”.

A Prepper is someone many people look down upon because they collect food, water, learn survival techniques, and “prepare” for a somewhat sketchy future in the “Not-Too-Distant-Future”. Whether they call it a Zombie Apocalypse, “The End of the World as We Know it” (teotwawki) or “The Stuff has Hit the Fan” (shtf) is not really relevant.

All preppers have some inner belief that something can go critically wrong in a moment of time which in turn will bring the end of Civilization.

The truth is, such a thing may never happen. Or it might and we may never know it happened.

For example, an errant asteroid might strike the Earth, without us first discovering it (or being informed of it’s presence). It could cause local damage or world wide damage. Surely it will cause world wide panic when or if it is discovered.

A smaller, local scale disaster might befall us. For instance in the United States we have “Yellowstone”, a wonderful Nation Park, which is known in the past to have been a very, very dangerous place more than once. At least four geological events have occurred there causing major destruction. Fortunately, the last one was about 640,000 years ago, long before humans are known to have roamed the Earth.

Yellowstone is past due for another event. It could literally destroy the United States as an entity. Ash and debris covering half the planet could bring about a massive temperature drop, causing a small “ice age”. It could gum up the works across the country or around the world. We just don’t know the extent of the damage that might be caused.

The human race might self-destruct and start a nuclear war, from which few of us would be insulated.

As a boat owner, extended cruiser and live-aboard, I have considered these things and tried to “prepare” for the worst. Before we lived on the ship, we lived in Colorado, in the midst of five US military installations within “nuclear blast range”. We figured if we were hit by the Russians, we’d have an extremely low chance of survival because we worked at separate installations with 40 statute miles between us. So my wife and I had set up our home as a survival place.

Even though we were pretty sure the house wouldn’t survive a multi-megaton blast on NORAD (in visual range of the house, where we lived on a hill, with nothing between us and NORAD) we hoped at least the basement would survive. We kept a pantry when the children were growing up, food for months and months. We installed a Hot Tub for fun and water supply. We set up shelving in the basement that could double as sleeping cots and had plans to put in “fall out insulation” (which would have been in the form of dirt in sand bags to help prevent radiation from penetrating to the basement level). We never finished that job of course and eventually sold the home.

Today, someone asked the question:

Any doomsday sea preppers out there? With the civilization seemingly inching closer to collapse, nuclear apocalypse and what have you, has anyone offered any thought as to how this will effect us sea people? Cruisers are inherently self sufficient, but we do in the end rely on mother earth and functioning societies to provide us with shelter, food, medicine, tools, parts, communication etc. This is a non political post btw, and feel free to delete if it doesn’t meet the groups standards. ⛵🌅

Now, me being me… I decided to respond and posted a couple of items. But then I checked and found no such group, at least not a public group I could see. There might be one, there might not, but there certainly is NOW.

I created the group called “Sailing and Cruising: Preppers” because there is a perceived need for such a group.

I added a few friends, and notified most of them of the addition, but interestingly enough, only a couple others have joined at this point, even after I posted the link. I expected with all the experts there, they would flock in. 🙂

In any case, IF you’re reading this now, and might be interested, and of course are on Facebook, the group is there now and you’re welcome to join.

I started the water pump and found the water was flowing from the front of the boat. It had to be coming from hoses going to the front head.

Our front head is… a closet. While it functions perfectly, it has a brand new Jabsco pump toilet and everything except MOST of the electricity works up there, the important stuff like water, toilet and bilge pump wiring functions.

This means I have removed a LOT of bulky items from the “closet”. Coats, my wet suit, canes (JoAnne and both have used them for walking in the past, and I keep them around “just in case”, lol. Three times breaking my right ankle taught me the hard way), there is a big bag of “dirt” used for the composting toilet sitting in there, some tools, and stacks of TP in the bags as well as paper towels, tarp and we store the unused heaters in there as well.

After I removed everything I crawled into the bathroom upside down and looked into the “undersink” area and immediately found the problem.

This is a Chinese built production vessel. The Chinese are pretty good at building things, stealing designs and making knock offs, and pretty good at plumbing. This boat is built with copper pipes, fore to aft plumbing the sinks and fresh water. Fortunately, it doesn’t get exposed to sea water. The water tanks are plumbed with plastic hoses, plastic connectors and various adapters connecting everything together. Some of it is haphazardly thrown together appearing as afterthoughts”.

The copper pipes going to the sink are held in place by a pressure fitting, with a rubber washer that presses the pipe into place as you tighten the nut. The apparent constant pounding on the front of the boat in the waves yesterday forced the pipe from it’s connection, which in turn released the pressure at the front of the boat, telling the pump to engage and it complied by forcing all the fresh water in the main tank out, into the under-sink area, down into the bilge, and the bilge pump simply did it’s job keeping sloshing water out of the bilge and outside the boat where it actually belongs.

The repair was simple. Remove the washer and nut and the metal washer, inspect everything, clean the connection and put it all back together, retorque the nut into place with the washer (I’d have put in a new one, but this was was not worn and appears to have been recently replaced since just before we bought the boat). The other side, I re-tightened. Turned on the pump and viola! Water pressure again. I really need to look at a foot pump though. haha Took about two hours of work removing things and repairs, and another week putting it all back together (all that stuff has to go somewhere!)

So, other than losing 60 gallons of fresh water through a failed plumbing connection and about 8 pounds of water from our bodies through other means best left undescribed, I’ll say we’re “none the worse for wear”. JoAnne is a bit dehydrated today which isn’t good for her. I’m “over” that for now, but am still constantly hungry dispite a half price burger and full priced pint of beer yesterday evening…. I’ll get some more food in me and look at the wiring up front.

We’re going to stay here at least once more week. Need to wait on our new credit card, I want to do some digging through things we have and see if we can’t eliminate a few things. Lighten the load so to speak.

We haven’t made a decision to stick with it, but we have been receiving a lot of encouragement from friends who’ve been through (and are actually going through now) similar issues.

I have learned that we’re both more “fair weather sailors” than we are old salts or hardcore-round-the-Horn people. I have ALWAYS known that the ocean demands respect, and I do. But, when it comes to rotten weather predictions by using the collected data I feel like I should have known better than to go out yesterday. JoAnne did. And I went back to bed for two hours, dozed off and awakened thinking I was going to “call it a day” before we went out.

But, I didn’t do that. I’ve ALWAYS trusted by instincts and the few times I didn’t turned out badly for me.

That kind of mistake, taken in small doses is usually just dumb. Downright dangerous though, when combined with the Sea, Weather and second guessing oneself.

Unlike the giant ships that disappear at sea, we came home.

No matter what we do from here on out, I’ll not venture down a coast in the wrong conditions again.

In 1962 a movie was made about Cape Fear. Saw it as a kid. Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, Telly Savalas were in the movie. It was a thriller type movie. Criminal, murder, stuff like that.

Yesterday we could have starred in our own thriller movie. Or horror movie. Or just a documentary about puking.

We left the docks at 0900 on the way out the Cape Fear inlet. We were supposed to leave at 0700 and JoAnne listened to the NOAA weather, and said “Not going out in 9 foot seas” and she was right. Completely, totally right to trust her instincts on departure. After discussing it with Judy and Stephen for a few minutes, we all agree a couple more hours sleep might be prudent.

We pulled out on time, at 0900, and headed back to the inlet. Tide was just starting to come back in and we slogged a bit through it in places. Bentana had little trouble with a newly repowered boat, brand new engine. We, on the other hand couldn’t make more than about 4 knots maximum most of the time and that was pushing the engine. I almost turned back and said “Nope”. But I didn’t.

We got out to the channel and dodged a ship. He called me and asked if I’d be polite enough to step out side the markers for him, to which I replied that he could have the entire ocean should he desire it. We moved outside the channel in 40′ of water and his bow bulb was as big as my whole boat. After he passed, I called him and “thanked him for the slow pass” and I think I made his day, he laughed and said “Good travels”.

No more incidents for a bit. Then the shoals came into view. And the water turned into a rocking wash tub. I almost turned back…. but I didn’t.

We called Bentana who was now gaining ground and moving at a quick pace out to sea. Judy said that they were going past marker 6 I think it was and then turning to 180 degrees to catch the wind, get out to sea and then would tack back later. I followed her lead.

We didn’t make it to the mark she turned out at. We were taking a pounding by then and the wind was wrong, and so were the waves. Making a decision to stop taking a pounding, I checked depths, and objects in front of me and turned to 180, raised sail and steadied the boat considerably. I consulted with JoAnne about turning around. She said “I want to go to Charleston. We’re already out here.” She had a point. I could have turned around… but I didn’t.

We sailing relatively well at that point going up and down the waves, and not getting slammed now, things somewhat smoothed out. But JoAnne kept getting sick. At some point I had to go below to check on something. What it was, I don’t even remember now. That’s when I started getting sick. First time ever being “seasick”. When we took a steep wave and most of the ocean washed over the foredeck and back to the cockpit coaming, it was at that point I thought “We should turn back…”. But I didn’t.

I called Bentana to check in at 1230 as we’d planned. They were “doing ok” and we all exchanged encouraging words.

By 1300, JoAnne was doing all she could to keep from throwing up, and I wasn’t. It was my turn. I got so sick I threw up for five solid minutes. I think I nearly passed out from it. I had heart surgery last year in May. I still have pain in my ribs and back from where they cracked open my chest. All my ribs crack like knuckles. I think they all popped yesterday. It was right about that moment in time I realized just how stupid this was. I stopped and considered the situation carefully. We could go on and we didn’t know the sea state would settle for sure, or we could go back, reverse course back through the washing machine, tides, current and winds all from different directions, we could heave too (we were about 8 miles out perhaps by then) and hope things settled.

At that moment, I made the “prudent” decision to turn around. Finally. All DAY I had not listened to my inner voice telling me “Today is not the day!” Please note I called it a “Purdent Decision”. It truly wasn’t a prudent decision. It was a mistake to go out when I had thought it wasn’t a good day. And to be clear I DO know weather conditions pretty well, and I wasn’t sure I was comfortable, but we were tired of being here, ready to go, ready to roll, get going, go somewhere else. All the way around “prudence” was jumping up and down trying to be noticed and I was ignoring “her”.

I called Bentana and told JoAnne, Judy and Stephen at the same time we were headed back in. I can’t bear to see JoAnne sick like that, and if something had happened to me she’d have been helpless at that point to do anything about it other than call for evacuation. That wasn’t going to happen.

We rode the waves back in, partially under sail, trying to keep the winds right and give us some speed. We made 4-5 knots back in, until the channel, where the waves were crossing us, and hitting the side of the boat. Not that we had a LOT of choice in which way to go. Shoals were coming up and waves were big, ships were headed out, and winds were still only 20 knots maybe. Not enough to bother the boat. It was the wave action that was sucking bad.

We passed three more, outgoing ships, I gave them wide berth and even used their wash to get into smoother waters for a bit. That helped. I had long since stopped being sick. Nothing left. JoAnne was settling down too I think by then. I occupied her with helping watch for markers and ships. (Hard to miss a ship, though, you really want to miss them….)

We hit the junction of Cape Fear River out going current, the incoming tide, let a giant cargo ship pass, and a tug pulling a barge, and I made it to the ICW cut headed back in with little difficultly.

The engine was still running so that was a good thing.

After we docked with help from Norm from the Marina, who was kind enough to stay on the dock until we arrived, Jay from Knot Working and the folks from the power yacht Chrysalis, I discovered the water pump running down below. I killed the breaker assuming the worst. A bit later, I discovered all the water in our main tank was pumped out (probably to sea) and the pump was running for awhile I guess. I’m surprised it didn’t burn out.

This morning I heard Judy and Stephen got beat up pretty badly as well, Judy was also, apparently ill as well. They made it as far as Georgetown. Far short of Charleston. I believe they said (JoAnne reported) they are on anchor now and resting, well and safe.

I have work to do on the water tank. I’m going to extend our visit here at least a week. I have work to do on the ship, repairs to make and I’m going to have a little chat with a few local business establishments around here…. because I came back to a message about my credit card being compromised (AGAIN) and five transactions for 17-28 bucks occurred yesterday in Raleigh, a good distance from here… but there are three suspects who could have used my number (having all three taken my card out of my sight to take a payment, or getting the number some other way). The rest of the places I used it, the card was never out of my sight and they swiped it into a machine so they couldn’t have easily gained the information from the card). I’m NOT happy about that happening either and if I discover for a fact who did it, there’s going to be consequences. I HATE thieves and I won’t hesitate to take whatever action is required to prevent them from stealing again (legal or otherwise given the right circumstances).

Today, JoAnne gets to relax her back and rest, I’m tearing things apart, making coffee and preparing for the cold weather coming. We are discussing giving up and quitting, selling the boat, getting an RV, going back to Colorado defeated, going on down the ICW, or choosing better sailing days on the outside.

Against the odds, against the forecasts, and against the models a massive hurricane has formed in the Caribbean Sea.

This morning when I checked it had been upgraded to a Category 5. It is sitting in the southern Caribbean Sea, south of Jamaica and appears to have taken a slight left turn, and will probably, quite suddenly swing northward on a collision course with Jamaica, the across Cuba, and onward into the Bahamas.

The conditions were really NOT all that conducive for forming such a massive hurricane which is why I said “against predictions” above. But, predictions, humans and computers programmed by humans are fallible.

Right now, the various models show the path taking a plunge to the north, through MOST of the Bahamas and on up the coast. Since yesterday evening, that has changed slightly and models are showing it moving north and then pushing eastward.

I’ve been watching some fronts moving across the states which might prove to save the day. If the timing is right, and I say IF, the two fronts should converge around Tuesday and push the hurricane east ward. Unfortunately, there is also a pretty big High sitting off the coast and that might cause some problems.

I’m not a meteorologist but I’ve studied it enough over the past 40 years to have a bit of knowledge on the subject. JoAnne and I storm chased and spotted for the NWS in Colorado for about 20 years. So we have a bit of background in mesoscale events. This is not meso. This is massive. Synoptic observations and data are easy to get these days, but I’m again, no expert in reading it all.

My “take” on this hurricane is that it WILL blow out over the Atlantic after reaching the Bahamas. It will weaken after hitting Jamaica because going over land reduces it’s power. It will build a bit, but hit Cuba further weakening it. By the time it hits Bahamas I think it Cat 3 or even a Cat 2 is all it will be. With LUCK and timing, the fronts should be above it and pushing outward to the East.

The Earth’s rotation as it travels north will also cause it to spin out away from the US. And prevailing westerlies.

At this point, I HOPE I am right. And I hope that the folks in Bahamas, Cuba and Jamaica all fare better than a category 5 will give them….

In other news, we’ve had rain, rain, rain for the past week. Either in Richmond where we visited a couple of days for my eye check up, and all the way here to the boat. Lots of rain. We had super high water a couple of days ago, washing over C Dock and some of the others. We’re on a floating dock, so the only issue we had was a dinghy full of water because SOMEONE forgot to pull the plug when he hoisted it onto the davits. Fortunately a kind neighbor noted something amiss and went over in his dinghy and pulled the plug for me. Normally, I remember to pull it, but for some reason I just spaced it. THAT is the kind of thing that sinks boats. Not remembering the little things. Live and learn.

Windows still leak somewhat, here and there. I think I have discovered one of the major leaks though. I believe at this point water from rain is coming in through the traveler area in front of the cockpit. I can’t pull out the stuff due to the building of the boat. I think I can seal it though. As to the windows, I don’t have the right gasket material and not too sure where to get it. So, I thought I’d do an experiment. I cleaned out the old, dried up gasket from one of the portlights and used RTV in the place where a gasket should be. I let it cure and sure enough, it works. Not the best thing, not permanent, but it DOES work in a pinch. So…. I’ll keep a few tubes of that stuff around for emergencies.

Front area cleaned up, and I can walk in there, I can access the anchor locker if needed, I can move stuff out of the forward head easily now and we can use that bathroom if necessary too. Hung our walking sticks, and some other long items up front from bungie cords. Tools accessible now. Front name plates are varnished, the red paint is on them, and at some point I can paint in the name of the boat on the forward plates…. maybe it will quit raining for a few days this century….

Plans now include a trip to a military commissary for paper products (TP, paper towels, plastic trash bags to store things) and of course “boat alcohol”. LOL. Cheaper, no taxes, but it’s a long drive. While we still have our car.

Our friend Kurt has promised to store our car for this winter/spring coming up until we come back this way. So we have that going for us.

I have a radio modification to perform on one of my rigs before we bug out. And I’d like to install the vhf/uhf rig some where in the boat where I can get power to it easily and get an antenna up on top somewhere. Might put that off awhile.

Eyes were pronounced “awesome” by the Doctor. I am 20:25 unaided by glasses, but do require reading glasses for up close. Can’t focus that close now. I can free dive soon if I want, or use a mask. So I’m good again, and I can SEE. Wow. Just wow.

Basically, all the BIG jobs are done. Just the little stuff. And waiting out hurricanes. I recall at this time last year, we were sitting in Galesville, Maryland awaiting Hurricane Joaquine which was making a bee line up the coast…. and was very similar to this one, except it started further north, went west, and then turned suddenly out to sea and never threatened the coast at all. Almost exactly a year ago today….interesting isn’t it?

Cataracts are nothing to sneeze at, though, you can sneeze with them and I’m not sure about sneezing after eye surgery. I’m afraid I’ll blow the new lens out of my left eye now. Of course, I was pretty certain that’s what was happening after my open heart surgery last year when I sneezed too. In fact, that STILL hurts when I sneeze.

My chest, not my eye.

Yesterday afternoon, I underwent surgery on my left eye to remove the bad lens that ha cataracts in it. I was pretty terrified. But my left eye was pretty bad. Worse than I even knew. I couldn’t even get it corrected to 20:50. It was more like 20:100.

This morning for the test, I was at 20:25. That’s as GOOD as my right eye, corrected with glasses and my right eye is my “shooting eye”. I can still hit targets at 100 yards in the center of mass (that’s all that’s required at that distance, I’m no sniper, lol) and mostly read.

Today, however, I can see 1000% better than I could yesterday with the left eye. And just as bad as before with my right.

The “terrified” part was due to a severe phobia I have about my eyes, and things, people, fingers, knives, needles, sharp things being around them. Most of us have that issue with our eyes, except those who stick things in their eyes, like contact lenses. Nope, NOT ME. I don’t even put eye drops in.

Until a few days ago.

Now I can, and do. It took me a few days of putting drops in pre-operative to be able to do it without flinching. And yesterday, before the surgery, they put in about a dozen drops into my eye, and the last few were this gel gunk. Gross. Gross. Gross.

Fortunately, they gave me some kind of drugs that let me get through without killing any one. That was cool. I did get yelled at perhaps three times by the Doctor. Not supposed to lift my feet, or move, or pee on myself, or something. Not sure I remember it all, but he looked a little sheepish when I mentioned it this morning. haha

So, why the title?

Because of fear of surgery. Fear of anesthesia. Because fear of needles in my eyes. Because I am, or was, mostly blind yesterday and was more than willing to stay that way because of the previous things.

Today, with my left eye opened and my right eye covered, I looked into JoAnne’s eyes (with my one good one) and could accurately see the color of her eyes again. Beautiful, deep and green. I was moved to tears.

I know I’ve missed seeing a lot of things over the last few years, and my work was becoming increasingly difficult to do, color codes on wires, close work soldering, and a few weeks ago I completely failed my grandson on attempting a repair on his tablet (that he’d broken the charging connector on) when I could have easily repaired it in earlier years.

I couldn’t see well enough to do the soldering. My work at my job was increasingly difficult and stressful, not because I couldn’t do it, but rather I KNEW I couldn’t see it well enough to do it right. So, it took me twice as long to do things. My partner couldn’t do most of the physical stuff either due to his injury. When we hired someone to take my place, we chose someone young because we knew he could keep up. The rest would come to him in time. I know he will eventually do the things I was doing (and if he doesn’t well, this IS a throw away society, isn’t it? They will simply replace those things that those guys can’t repair because they can’t or don’t know how…. such is life in the 21st Century).

What this will do for me now though is allow me to see charts (using glasses on the close up stuff) and at a distance through slightly less than 20:20 vision to see numbers on buoys, names on ships, lights at night so I can night sail now again, and actually ENJOY what’s left of my life, to see those things I was missing before.

What I will have next Wednesday night, after the second surgery, is good eye sight in both eyes. I’ll still need glasses for close work. But, I’ll really be able to wear sun glasses without any special lenses in them.

And I’ll be able to see only one moon now, instead of seven or eight of them. And no halos, glare or just nothing at all.

Yesterday I decided I needed to actually rip into the aft cabin and take apart the bed to get to the batteries. Lead-Acid cells, all of them, need to be checked from time to time for evaporating water from the electrolyte. I installed one set of batteries in August last year, the second set here in Norfolk and did the wiring job.

I apparently missed a few steps with our system I should have paid more attention to.

How I discovered I missed the steps was a night from hell last night.

Let me start in the aft bedroom. I pulled the mattresses. We’ve been here for just over a week and when I put them down they were dry as a bone, unblemished and practically new. When I pulled them, the bottoms were damp, mildew had begun to form on the bottom. The wet, rainy days and closed cabins contributed to this problem with condensation all over the cabin for a few nights.

I did as JoAnne asked and sprayed down the tops of the mattresses (after flipping them so the bottoms were now the tops) and wiped them down with a weak vinegar solution to kill the mildew. I set them off and began work on the battery compartment, located quite inconveniently beneath the bed, just under the boards that are the surface for the mattresses.

I pulled out the old (dare I say “ancient”) hydrometer and opened the first battery to check the specific gravity of the cells. First the hydrometer began to come apart in my hands. Second I realized that lo and behold, there’s no visible fluid in the cells. Ack. Bad news. I had spoken to the marina who said they “were regularly checking the boat and batteries”. Today I confirmed they were merely checking the charging status on the panel, and never once went into the compartment to actually “check the batteries”. Double-ack…. Mistake number one, assuming that people are doing what they actually say they are doing.

So, I open all the batteries and they are all very low. I used filtered water (no distilled available, verified I could use it first of course). I put between 4-6 ounces into each cell. That’s a lot. That means at least a half inch or perhaps more of each cell was exposed to air and this is not a good thing for batteries.

I went ahead and closed everything up and started checking the charging station. We have a “smart charging system”, built by Xantrex called a Heart 2000R (monitor). There is my second mistake…. I’ll get back to this in a minute.

In the mean time, JoAnne and I went out, had a couple beers, ate some food, came back. I noted a slight odor which seemed familiar but JoAnne said “Smells like the vinegar to me” and I assumed it was. Mistake number three, not investigating more closely.

After while, I thought the smell was stronger. And it was. I then investigated. Walking into the aft cabin, it was HOT in there. Probably 85 degrees. WAY hotter than it should have been. Then it hit me. The smell. Well, the identification of the smell. Sulfur from batteries. YIKES!

I shut down the charger, removed all the mattresses, bedding and cover and the heat coming out of the battery compartment was stifling. I switched off the system and starter batteries by using the big switches. I could still touch the batteries without being burned, but they were literally boiling inside. I quickly opened all the hatches, head, windows and turned on fans to blow out any fumes and likely hydrogen (I have a scar on my forehead to remind me to do that stuff, where a battery blew up when I was about 15 or 16).

I placed another small DC fan on top of the batteries as soon as I was sure the fumes were mostly cleared out, mostly to dissipate the heat, and cool the batteries.

I checked voltages, which seemed fine. But man, were those batteries hot!

Mean time, now it’s getting late.

We didn’t get to actually go to bed until around 1AM probably. The batteries were warm all night but I put the bed bad together. I kept getting up to check the system to make sure everything was still disconnected, the charger wasn’t kicking on, and nothing was going to catch fire. We packed up some emergency stuff, including car and boat keys, our computers and wallets and grabbed some clothing to evacate if necessary and I found a knife to cut the boat loose from the docks in an emergency. I figured if there were a fire, I’d at least try to kick the boat away from the docks to prevent the fire from spreading. Two fire extinguishers remained close by and loose, along with flash lights.

As far as I could tell, I had everything prepared and well in hand for any emergency. But fortunately the heat was slowly dissipating.

At 0400 I was awake again, and really only dozed on and off after checking a couple of things. All seemed fine.

Finally, I figured out that the “smart charger” system isn’t as “smart” as you would think it would be.

In October or November I had bought our second battery bank to add. One of the things I didn’t know, Mistake number two, was that you have to reprogram the system to know how large the batteries were. That is the capacity. We went from 230 amp hours to 460 amp hours. The Heart monitor needed to changed. Didn’t know that. I figured like most things with computers, the system would sense the batteries and capacity and adjust. Nope.

Mistake number one, I spoke to David the dock master this morning and he confirmed, “No, we just check the charging status….”. Oh, wow. Even knowing that we were gone for several weeks, out of state and couldn’t get back and I’d specifically asked him on the phone to check the batteries? “Yup”. Double-wow.

I went to the store to buy a new hydrometer. Four whole dollars. Should have bought two, but they only had one. Came back, removed coverings, bedding etc and started all over. All of the cells read properly at between 1.275 and 1.32 for specific gravity. So, obviously the batteries are charged, perhaps slightly over-charged. They over heated but, not warped. No damage.

I downloaded the manual for the Xantrek Heart 2000-R and read it. Not all the way through, but enough to grasp my mistake with the settings. I corrected those.

I have since turned on the charger and it DOES shut back down.

In the process of doing all this, I discovered one more problem. Apparently, half of the boat is connected to the starter battery, including a bilge pump and some lighting. What?????

Holy cow, I’ll never figure this out. I’m going to wind up rewiring the entire boat I think. Some of the wires don’t meet AYBC standards and some have “sawed through” in the middle of the boat (when we were in the Chesapeake Bay caught in the rough weather and I have rewired a few things to bring back my chart plotter). I can’t even imagine what kind of problems I’m going to find behind bulkheads when I try to fix these issues.

As of this minute… the batteries do charge, they still “heat a bit” but nothing like that night. They probably need equalization, but I’m not going to run that until I’m at a different location. I’ve had absolutely ENOUGH bad luck here.

This afternoon, after testing all the battery cells and writing all that information down in my little engineering book I started keeping (along with a simple schematic of the battery wiring I can see easily, without having to hang upside down in bilges and under toilets for now) I started on the engine.

I checked all the fluid levels. They all were good. I’ll need to add a small amount of oil when we start our drive north, but everything was good. I opened the seacock for the engine intake, punched the glow plug button for 10 seconds and hit the starter. The Perkins turned over and fired instantly, just like she was all warmed and ready to go.

I stepped off the boat, walked around to the exhaust and she was blowing out white smoke and a lot of antifreeze. At least they had followed through with that part (which I had paid for…). The water is coming through great, plenty of pressure and plenty of water from the exhaust. All good.

I placed the transmission into gear and gave her a little throttle and the shaft started turning, everything sounded good, and water was being pushed back, all was good. Took her out of gear and let her run for awhile, while I looked for leaks, drips, spraying water, or anything wrong with the engine. All good.

I left the engine running for about 30 minutes. Probably should have let it run longer but I didn’t think that necessary at this point.

As of this time, 1600, I’m done, writing this blog and having a beer.

I pronounce the system “ok”, but I’m not confident in the charging system at this point. I do have the downloaded manual, and I’ll get one of the inverter, charger and the brain of this thing and study them better. I am pretty much through trusting the word of anyone in a Marina who says “Yeah, I did that thing you wanted done” until I check it myself.

We had issues in Stony Point Marina. The guy running the place was a pirate. I’ve refrained from posting this to this point, but it’s time others know about these places. I’ll write that up in another post later… but suffice it to say he was trying to have me “pay cash” for some things and didn’t want to give me a “receipt”. Had that happen with a cop in Michigan once passing through with my Colorado Plates. I basically forced the cop to give me a receipt and wound up getting ALL my money back for a ticket I shouldn’t have gotten in the first place. (Another long story).

This marina is very good about saying they will do things.. but they take their time, and right in their paperwork they make sure you know it doesn’t matter if it’s their fault, mine or a contractor, you’re paying for your time on their docks no matter whose fault it is the work isn’t being done. They’ve started charging a “live aboard fee” to the folks who actually stay here. Of course, they gotta pay for their new docks too I guess….

We are moving next week. I cut a better deal at less than half the price of this place. About time we got a break somewhere besides bones and wallets….

Last night was as scary as the storm on the Chesapeake Bay. My children will tell you I am absolutely psychoticly paranoid about fires. Last night was the worst of my nightmares attempting to come to fruition. A fire. On a boat. On the water. Under my bed. Worst fear. I hate spiders and I’d face one of those down that is my size, before I’d want to deal with a fire.

I considered for a minute God has been trying to prevent JoAnne and I from doing this thing. But, you know… if He wanted us dead He had Cancer. He had heart attack. He had a wind storm on the Chesapeake. He had a truck almost hit us head on (my fault mostly). He has had multiple opportunities through out the last seven or eight years. If God wanted us off the planet, he’d have taken us away.

I don’t for a second believe in “Bad Luck”. Or Good Luck. I believe luck is what you make of life. You do things to prevent bad things from happening. That’s what luck is. Make sure you dot your i’s, cross your t’s, get your insurance, pay your dues, whatever it takes to simplify things ahead of you. Nothing we’ve done has been deadly. But everything we’ve done has been a learning experience.

Learning is what we humans do. Then we move on to something new.

Time to move on, to a new marina. New projects, a new place and new friends further north.